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Learning How to Progress

I was finally able to get one of my friends from that other world we call “Reality,” into our preciously simulated New Eden yesterday evening. I assume many of my fellow New Eden residents are getting the same opportunity with the advent of the Dust 514 open beta. Now, my buddy is no stranger to the FPS, logging in what even I consider to be an unhealthy amount of hours into BF3, so getting him into the gist of everything wasn’t terribly difficult, but holy crap I forgot how much I take for granted the knowledge I’ve been able to bring over from EVE and apply to Dust.

As I was explaining the intricacies of the skill system to my meat-space colleague, I thought that these kinds of things might make for a useful blog entry to the Dust merc stepping into New Eden for the first time. So with that said, there are two major things you should keep in mind when you go about skilling up your Dust Bunny.

– ONE // CORE SKILLS –

You may or may not have heard this yet, but it should be reiterated anyway until it’s drilled in your head because they’re that important. There are particular skills in your skill list that will help you no matter what type of combat role you finally decide to start specializing as (which we’ll get to in a moment). We refer to these skills as the “Core Skills.” There are four major ones that every single ground pounder should focus on. I would recommend trying to get to the skill levels I talk about below within your first week of playing. Trust me, it will save you much in frustrating suit fittings.

Dropsuit Command: For a number of reasons, you’ll want to get this to 3 as soon as possible. First off, if you want to get into a heavy dropsuit, that’s where you need it. You also get a nifty -5% Signature Radius (what’s the Dust term, Scan Radius? I forget…), which makes it more difficult for enemy dropsuits to pick you up on their radar. Also, you’ll need this at 5 if you ever want to find yourself in an advanced suit.

Circuitry: There are two things on your suit that all of your modules will rely on. One of them is CPU. This skill allows you to get more CPU out of all of your suits. The better a module is, (generally) the more CPU it’s going to eat up. If you want to be using the best equipment, this will eventually need to be 5, but for the first week, aim at getting it to a 3.

Field Engineering: Remember I said there were two things all your modules would rely on? Powergrid is the other thing, and Field Engineering is the skill that lets you get more powergrid out of your suits. Again, I’d get this to a 3 in the first week, with 5 planned for the not too distant future.

Weaponry: The fastest way out of danger is to kill danger. This skill will let you do that. It is, I think, worth a piece of the big chunk of points (500,000?) you get when you create your character to jump it right up to skill level 4. With a 2% bonus per level to the damage of whatever particular death dispenser you happen to gravitate towards, you’ll dish out 8% more damage than a newberry who doesn’t bother with this skill. Trust me, that’s not an insignificant amount. At 1.2 million skillpoints, Jeremiad R. Doomprofit has yet to get a skill to 5, but when that time comes, weaponry will probably be the first.

– TWO // SPECIALIZATION –

It’s a commonly heard piece of advice in Eve that I haven’t heard so much in the Dust environment. If you want to be effective quickly (and not totally die ALL THE TIME), it’s good to first find a type of role on the battlefield you enjoy playing, and invest your skillpoints heavily into areas that will support that role. This allows you to quickly get on equal footing even against enemy mercs who may have a vast many more skill points than you, as long as you’re staying within your chosen role.

Generalization will come in time, when you’re old and grizzled and bitter. Luckily, none of the militia items require any investment in skillpoints, which gives you plenty of different combat roles to try out before you finally settle on your path to Valhalla (actually, I don’t know if that’s an appropriate analogy, since you’re constantly in and out of death like a revolving door…but I digress).

I guess the best example I can give is the path I’ve chosen for myself. It may give you insights into things you should be aware of as you contemplate what dropsuit fit best suits your tastes.

I’m a logi-bro with a mind for speed. Logistics suits are the Swiss-Army Knives of the battlefield, and in order for me to be effective, I’ve got to be able to get to my teammates as quickly as possible. I also happen to be a bit of an idealist when it comes to judging whether I can get to a “man down” marker before my fallen comrade fizzles into dust….heh.

So, it pays to be a little faster and I like to be mobile. That’s basically what I had in mind when designing my fit. Now, I bought my PS3 the day Dust merged with Eve permanently, which meant I got that little Dust starter kit that came with new PS3s that included $10 worth of arum (which could buy WAY more than what we’re seeing currently). All the modules I’m going to list are militia blueprints I bought with arum, which is pretty great not having to worry about losing ISK when you die, but really not totally necessary to accumulate any sort of wealth (militia stuff is dirt cheap). I should also note that my suit is the ‘Sever’ Logistics suit, which allows for 3 equipment slots, instead of the militia logistics of 2.

And then there’s locust grenades and I use the assault rife (so, assault rifle skill is at 3, worth it). I started with all those modules being militia modules, but over the course of the past week, have been using my skillpoints to increase the skills that utilize those particular modules. Now, I can use the next step up from the basic modules for everything but the nano injector which my suit’s CPU and powergrid couldn’t handle anyway, meaning it’s time to upgrade my Logistics suit skill so that I can get a better logi-suit! Yay! (So, for example, the basic shield extender gives 22 extra hp to your shield, while the next step up adds 33hp).

Kind of see how it works? I’ve found a niche; a hyper quick (shield tank with a cardiac regulator) reviver, repper, and resupplier. I’m now focusing on skills that will allow me to get the best possible modules that my suit can hold, and when it can’t hold any more, then I upgrade to a new suit (as apposed to waiting weeks and weeks to get into a high skill point suit, and then not be able to fit anything on it because I lack the proper fitting skills).

Of course there are extra little skills where it wouldn’t hurt getting a rank or two in while you’re focusing on your core build. I’m a logi-bro and while I mainly try and focus on keeping people alive, I highly recommend the light weapon sharpshooter skill (or heavy weapon if that’s your main weapon of choice).

In any case, this is basically the gist of what I told my buddy last night. Geez… it is a lot. Well, now it’s typed out, so I think from now on if anyone asks, I’ll just send them this blog link (or talk their ear off for the next hour…)